


All of Harold's Friends Are Assholes

by lazulisong



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Gen, M/M, harold is surrounded by trolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/pseuds/lazulisong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold doesn't celebrate his birthday and he's perfectly happy that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of Harold's Friends Are Assholes

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [All of Harold's Friends Are Assholes 他的朋友全作死 (翻译/Translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5712970) by [sandunder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandunder/pseuds/sandunder)



> All of my friends are also assholes, which is why the terrible GDoc title became the actual title. BLAME GUS, AND ALSO TWITTER CONVERSATIONS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NEVER EMBARKED UPON.
> 
> Also I have arbitrarily decided that Harold's birthday is Feb 29, 1960.
>
>> QUICK someone write Nathan pranking Harold by pretending it's his birthday and throwing him a BIG OFFICE PARTY. With CAKE and SINGING.
>> 
>> — leupagus (@leupagus) [March 27, 2013](https://twitter.com/leupagus/status/316970029025460224)  
> 

Harold did not celebrate his birthday, and never had, not even as a child. Parties and other children bored him, and by the time he was five or six, his parents had learned not to make a fuss of it.

As far as MIT was concerned, Harold had been born on January 1st, 1960. Nathan, by virtue of being Harold's best and probably only friend, was aware that that was probably not the correct date, but getting anything about himself out of Harold was a delicate matter at the best of times and usually more like getting blood out of a rock.

"You've got to have been born sometime," said Nathan, two days into a five day coding binge, high on caffeine and lack of sleep. "Like, you're here, right, so you've got to have been born and it has to be one day of the year."

"I'm not telling you when I was born, Nathan," says Harold, not looking up from his console. "I don't want to have a party. You'll have cake and coeds and pot and I won't get the smell out of the room for weeks."

"You," said Nathan, "are no fun."

"Focus, Nathan," said Harold, and that was the end of it for about twenty years, until Harold made Nathan be the CEO of IFT and Nathan retaliated by convincing HR that birthday celebrations for employees were a key factor in loyalty and retention. They brought Harold a giant sheet cake on June 25th with a bird drawn on it -- the bakery said it was a bird, at least -- and all the other cubicle rats stood in a circle around Harold's cube and sang Happy Birthday before descending on the cake and fruit punch like wolves. HR gave him a certificate to a steakhouse, too, which Harold ended up using as a bookmark. Harold was so embarrassed his cheeks turned spotty and scarlet and Nathan spent the next week cleaning virii off his computer, every hour on the hour.

It was worth it, though.

After that nobody mentioned or celebrated Harold's birthday, even his fake ones, and Harold was happy with that. Sometimes on his real birthday he would buy himself a book or a particularly nice bottle of wine, and spend the evening alone in his study, reading.

Then Nathan died, and nobody remembered or knew that Harold's birthday wasn't real, and maybe worse, nobody cared to know or remember. Harold dealt with it, like he dealt with everything now, and anyway for a long time he was too sick to care about it.

When he got better, he spent half a year trying to find a partner -- not like Nathan, never like Nathan, but then he found John, with his quiet and his anger and his presence everywhere in Harold's life. John noticed things about Harold, like not even Nathan had, and Harold wavered between pleased and angry about it. It was okay, though, at first, because he knew that John would be more likely to stay with him, to help him and the Machine, if he was interested by Harold. So he dropped hints and let John figure things out.

And then John got into Harold's armor, somehow, with his hands that held guns with careless ease and Leila with as much care as if she'd been one of Harold's delicate motherboards; he poked and prodded at Harold until Harold poked and prodded back. He became necessary, like nobody had been since Nathan, since Grace.

Still, there were times when Harold regretted everything extremely, even bitterly, from the day he'd enrolled at MIT and walked into his dorm room with a single battered suitcase with two changes of shirts and underwear and met a smiling blond who looked like a trust fund kid but had a mind like a razor, whose things crowded Harold's out into the hallway, down to becoming friends with him, the Machine, hearing about John, choosing John as his partner -- all of it, Harold would dearly like to take it back and trade it in for a quiet job at a library.

"Mr Reese," he said tiredly, "dare I ask what the occasion is?"

John blew a party horn into his face so the tip of it barely touched his nose as it unrolled. Bear sat with an expression of puzzled resignation behind him, as if he knew something was going on but was reserving judgement. John had somehow found and convinced Bear to wear without scratching off a ruff collar shaped like a birthday cake with candles, with HAPPY BIRTHDAY written on the cake in bright pink letters. There were streamers all around his computer. "It's June 25th," said John.

"Yes, I have a calendar," said Harold.

"According to your records from IFT," said John, picking up a party hat and then putting it down again at the look Harold gave him,"it's your fifty-third birthday. I wanted to celebrate, Harold." The look of angelic innocence on his face didn't suit him at all.

"Today isn't my birthday," said Harold. There was a cake dangerously near his monitors; it was covered in fondant plaid and the top was a strikingly realistic version of the Twitter mascot. The bakery had piped "TO MY FAVORITE LITTLE BIRD" on the cake. There was even a dog cake for Bear.

John gave him the same look Bear sometimes gave people if they were being particularly obtuse and refusing to share donuts with him. "I know that."

"Is this some sort of effort to find out my real birthday? Because it won't work, Mr Reese." Harold was under no illusions about the wisdom of allowing John to find out his actual birthday.

John lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "You gave me something for my birthday," he reminded Harold. "Many happy returns, Harold."

Bear nudged up against Harold's hand, his eyes hopeful. Harold stroked his ear, and cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. I -- I suppose it's lemon poppyseed?"

"Of course it is," said John.

"Thank you, John," said Harold, and found to his surprise that he meant it.


End file.
